“Is your sister young?”

“Just my age; you know I told you we are twins.”

“Is she like you?”

“Yes, she is fair-haired, too; and oh! such pretty curling hair!  She is a mite of a woman, with a little thin face, not one of your noisy, flashy hoydens, ah, no!—­Dear Henriette!”

“You love her very dearly!”

“Yes, yes—­”

There was silence between them after that, and Jean, glancing at Maurice, saw that his eyes were closing and he was about to fall.

“Hallo there, old fellow!  Come, confound it all, brace up!  Let me take your gun a moment; that will give you a chance to rest.  They can’t have the cruelty to make us march any further to-day! we shall leave half our men by the roadside.”

At that moment he caught sight of Osches lying straight ahead of them, its few poor hovels climbing in straggling fashion up the hillside, and the yellow church, embowered in trees, looking down on them from its perch upon the summit.

“There’s where we shall rest, for certain.”

He had guessed aright; General Douay saw the exhausted condition of the troops, and was convinced that it would be useless to attempt to reach la Besace that day.  What particularly influenced his determination, however, was the arrival of the train, that ill-starred train that had been trailing in his rear since they left Rheims, and of which the nine long miles of vehicles and animals had so terribly impeded his movements.  He had given instructions from Quatre-Champs to direct it straight on Saint-Pierremont, and it was not until Osches that the teams came up with the corps, in such a state of exhaustion that the horses refused to stir.  It was now five o’clock; the general, not liking the prospect of attempting the pass of Stonne at that late hour, determined to take the responsibility of abridging the task assigned them by the marshal.  The corps was halted and proceeded to encamp; the train below in the meadows, guarded by a division, while the artillery took position on the hills to the rear, and the brigade detailed to act as rear-guard on the morrow rested on a height facing Saint-Pierremont.  The other division, which included Bourgain-Desfeuilles’ brigade, bivouacked on a wide plateau, bordered by an oak wood, behind the church.  There was such confusion in locating the bodies of troops that it was dark before the 106th could move into its position at the edge of the wood.

“Zut!” said Chouteau in a furious rage, “no eating for me; I want to sleep!”

And that was the cry of all; they were overcome with fatigue.  Many of them lacked strength and courage to erect their tents, but dropping where they stood, at once fell fast asleep on the bare ground.  In order to eat, moreover, rations would have been necessary, and the commissary wagons, which were waiting for the 7th corps to come to them at la Besace, could not well be at Osches at the same time.  In the